IBARW

[truepenny]

This is International Blog Against Racism Week. The community is ibarw, and is collecting links.

Racism, like all kinds of bigotry, is a blight on our species. It makes me angry and impatient that we haven't fixed it yet (yeah, like it's that simple, I know, I know)--and I'm someone privileged by the status quo. I don't want to be privileged, and I think it's important to understand that the opposite of privilege is not oppression. This is a frequently made and frequently unarticulated mistake that I think fuels a lot of the fear that keeps systemic, institutionalized racism operational, the belief that this is a zero-sum game. Which it isn't. The opposite of privilege--and the opposite of oppression--is equality.

ETA: I realized, thinking about it, that the above conceptualization is slightly wrong. Privilege and oppression are opposites, because they're a binary, and binary thinking--in this, as in a bunch of other kinds of bigotry: sexism, homophobia, religious jingoism, etc. etc.--is one of the underlying, ingrained fallacies that keeps the Us vs. Them mentality alive.

Equality is the third term, the term that explodes the false binary.

Comments

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

I hate this use of "privilege". This looks like one of those cases where our opponents somehow got to choose the terminology -- people on our side couldn't have been dumb enough to choose this terminology for us, could they? Oh. Because I'm white and male and reasonably able-bodied, there are a bunch of things I don't have to worry about that a lot of other people *do* have to worry about. But the outcome I support, and that I believe most of my friends support, is not that *all of us* should start worrying about being arrested in our own house because of our race; the outcome that we support is that *none* of us should have to worry about that! "Privilege" means some unfair advantage somebody has, which should by definition (that's what "unfair" means) be taken away. It's kind of the opposite of what's going on in a lot of cases -- lots of people are being oppressed, and we want that to stop. Using the language of "privilege", decrying "white privilege" and such, makes white people not deeply familiar with the terminology think you want to take stuff they have now away from them. This tends to make them opponents of anti-racism, even when they're not in favor of actual racism. Maybe I'm missing things? Are there things that need to be taken away from me, as opposed to not taken away from oppressed people? (Full snark marks to whoever answers "your keyboard!"). Claims at the level of "the entire economic system is founded on the labor of an exploited underclass" are the best I can do. That level of claim can't be refuted or proved or even really described in a sentence; but I'm a believer in the importance of people, and I think the costs of keeping people out of better jobs (where they would create more value) outweigh the savings from getting cheap labor.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

> "Privilege" means some unfair advantage somebody has, which should by definition (that's what "unfair" means) be taken away.

Yes.

[synchcola.livejournal.com]

"Privilege" means some unfair advantage somebody has, which should by definition (that's what "unfair" means) be taken away.

Hey, this is a misuse of language to justify an argument without merit. That's not even close to the way the word "privilege" is used.

You say: I feel privileged to be present at this event. Or: Using a library is a privilege, not a right. There's no implication present that the privilege should be taken from you.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

And when you say someone is a child of privilege, you mean something else.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's a valid usage. It's not the usage we're talking about.

[synchcola.livejournal.com]

Which usage are you talking about? That's the usual way to use the word, I think.

I'm not being facetious here. I can't imagine that the word "privilege" would convey disgust and contempt. Could you give an example?

If I say someone is a "child of privilege" — for example, someone who was able to get a graduate degree without taking out student loans because their family was wealthy — I very much doubt that you infer that their degree should be stripped from them or that they should have to pay off imaginary student loans. The word "privilege" does not have the kind of extreme pejorative loading that you are suggesting.

[yukis-kirausagi.livejournal.com]

I don't want to infer any answers here but the way I understand what he's saying is that for being a white, male, able-bodied (dd_b did not mention about heterosexuality either...which plays a big part in "privilege") adult he automatically gets more respect from people and is looked at first for various other things. As compared to a white, able-bodied female, as compared to a Hispanic person, as compared to a black person, etc., etc.

"Privilege" goes beyond even race or sex/gender. I could be a deaf or other wise differently abled white male and still not get some of the same things as dd_b is talking about.

For me at least that is where I see the word "privilege" being used incorrectly. In my personal opinion, a privilege is something you should have to work for regardless of your ethnicity, your sex, or whatever you identify as. Unfortunately I'm not as naive as people think or say I am and I know it doesn't work that way. And some of it is because people fight for freedom and equality at the same time but you can't have both. One or the other, not both.

I recommend reading or at least looking at Race, Class, and Gender in the United States by Paula S. Rothenberg. It paints a clearer picture of the (what I deem) atrocities of the way American society works.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Talking about "privilege", in my experience, is nearly always done in the context of how to end it. In a slightly different context, saying that one "privileges" one view over another is nearly always raised as an objection.

[synchcola.livejournal.com]

Talking about "privilege", in my experience, is nearly always done in the context of how to end it.

This assertion is wrong. (http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2006-03-08_146#not_bad) One can understand privilege and be aware of it. I've never heard anyone talk about ending it. A lot of the time "ending" it would require a time machine and probably some kind of plot hole spackle.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I think we're mixing up reaction to "a privilege" with "privilege" in this discussion. "Privilege" by itself carries a taint of hereditary aristocracy, something unearned and undeserved and probably headed for the guillotine, whereas "a privilege" may very well be earned and deserved.

[redbird]

As far as I can tell, there are at least two things going on here and called privilege. One is the things that in a better world, everyone would have: it should not be a privilege to decide whether, or who, to marry, or to say no to sexual advances, or to be able to choose your religious practices or lack thereof. And one person having those rights doesn't take them away from someone else.

The other is the things that really are part of oppression, because they involve some people getting stuff at the expense of another. If group A has the socially accepted right to interrupt group B, and not vice versa, A has something taken from B. If women, or black people, or members of some other group are only considered for a class of powerful, well-paid, or other desirable jobs after all the white men have had a chance to apply, the privileged group is getting those jobs at the expense of the less-privileged.

There are important places where the two kinds of privilege overlap. It should not be a privilege to walk down the street without being harassed, or to have the law enforcement system treat you as innocent until proven guilty. Nor should it be a privilege to have the police help you if you're the victim of a crime. However, if law and/or custom say that whenever there's a dispute between an X and a Y, the X's testimony will be taken as true, that both hurts Y's and helps X's.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly. All that is exactly right...er, descriptive of reality (parts of which are NOT right :-)).

[(Anonymous)]

But what does equality really mean, in a country and a world in which the wealth disparities are so great? Part of historical white [economic] privilege has been closely tied to stealing wealth from other non-white parts of the world--whether that wealth has been acquired by seizing actual human bodies (slavery), or comandeering natural resources/land, or impoverishing the local economy to the benefit of the 'home' economy, or whatever. I don't personally know how much it would affect quality of life in the 'first world' if all 'third world' debt were forgiven (as it should be, as just a start), but I'm not willing to bet the effect would be zero. So, yes, us white folks may have to do without some things if we're serious about addressing the effects of centuries of racism-in-action. I think it's a moral imperative that we do so, but I could easily be shouted down by the contingent that will *never* surrender any part of its economic privilege.

Just my two cents.

Melanie
Albuquerque

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

I think we'd better set a statute of limitations on fixing the past. Is there anywhere, except perhaps Iceland, where the current land-owners aren't the beneficiaries of theft?

And most analyses I've seen show that colonialism didn't benefit the home country economy (though it did benefit some small number of politically powerful individuals economically).

The third world debt that exists now is from loans made in the recent past -- rarely more than 10 years.

[(Anonymous)]

As a practical matter, you'd have to set a limit on how far back you wanted to go. And the time span might need to vary from place to place. But no one in power is ever going to have a serious conversation along these lines, so this is mostly just me complaining. (My complaints are grounded in the time I spent living in Bangladesh as a Peace Corps volunteer. And then learning that the area was relatively prosperous until the British got there and destroyed the local textile industry so it couldn't compete with British production. I'm holding a grudge.)

Melanie

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Yeah, all of our ancestors have done pretty scummy things, at least statistically (and my grandfather was English; that one is much closer to me than many). For that matter, "my" government (that I voted against) has done some pretty scummy things during my adult lifetime. There are probably some things my government did while it was one that I voted FOR that were pretty scummy; I guess this is getting fairly clsoe to "I have done pretty scummy things", isn't it? Mind you, the ones I'm thinking of , if they'd asked me, I'd have said "no". But still. I'd need to vote for making amends, if there was a way to do so.

One reason nobody in power will have the conversation is that it's too big. It disrupts everything and doesn't make much difference. And the people who don't get what they want don't retire their old grievance, they acquire a new one. And because it covers everything and goes back so far, quite a lot of the "proper compensation" cancels out.

Now, around where I live, or at least a few hundred miles west of here, we white invaders have been holding the land longer than the Native Americans we stole it from held it after they stole it from the previous Native American occupants. And we don't have very good information on how long those previous occupants had it, I don't think.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Binary thought is very western, too. One of the things I'm learning from my studies in non-European history is just how localised it is.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Oh yes.

[yukis-kirausagi.livejournal.com]

I agree with that statement. The vast majority of my friends are Swedish or Norwegian (I am aware that that's considered the "west") but they think very differently and more open-mindedly than most Americans do.

As someone who tries not to fall into the 'binary' trap as much as possible, it's very difficult to explain certain more Western concepts to them and some of my Korean and Japanese friends as well.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Oh, that's so true.

open-minded

[(Anonymous)]

Swedes and Norwegians open-minded? This is only one anecdote, of no value statistically, but when I went to Scandanavia with my mixed-race family (some of us are white and some are black), the black family members got stopped every time, all the time. The Swedes and Norwegians didn't ask to see those of us who were white's passports or tickets or anything like that. Black family members were constantly questioned and watched, however.

I don't think there was active or conscious ill-will (at least, not much). I just think that Scandanavia is a pretty homogenous place, compared to the US, and people who live in homogenous places have a very easy time being open-minded in THEORY and an even easier time unconsciously identifying people as Other and treating them accordingly.